The Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building, formerly the Social Security Administration Building, is a historic building at 330
Independence Avenue,
Southwest
The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A '' compass rose'' is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west— ...
,
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...
, United States.
History
The building was designed by
Charles Zeller Klauder
Charles Zeller Klauder (February 9, 1872 – October 30, 1938) was an American architect best known for his work on university buildings and campus designs, especially his Cathedral of Learning at the University of Pittsburgh, the first educat ...
and the
Office of the Supervising Architect
The Office of the Supervising Architect was an agency of the United States Treasury Department that designed federal government buildings from 1852 to 1939.
About
The office handled some of the most important architectural commissions of ...
under
Louis A. Simon, in the
Stripped Classical
Stripped Classicism (also referred to as Starved Classicism or Grecian Moderne) Jstor is primarily a 20th-century classicist architectural style stripped of most or all ornamentation, frequently employed by governments while designing officia ...
style in 1939. The building has Egyptian elements as well.
Construction was completed in 1940, but Social Security did not become the building's first occupant. Instead, the threat of war created a need for space for defense agencies, and the building was made available to the War Department and the National Defense Commission. After the war, the
Federal Security Agency
The Federal Security Agency (FSA) was an Independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the United States government established in 1939 pursuant to the Reorganization Act of 1939. For a time, the agency oversaw food ...
, under which the Social Security Board had been placed in 1939, moved into the building. In 1953, FSA's successor, the Department of
Health, Education and Welfare
The United States Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is a cabinet-level executive branch department of the US federal government created to protect the health of the US people and providing essential human services. Its motto is "Imp ...
, part of which became the Department of Health and Human Services in 1980, became the primary occupant.
On April 28, 1988, the building was renamed the
Wilbur J. Cohen Federal Building in honor of the Social Security Board's first professional employee and the former Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare.
On July 6, 2007, the building was added to the
National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...
.
Voice of America
Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American internation ...
and the
U.S. Agency for Global Media are the building's principal occupants. VOA has been headquartered in the building since 1954.
Gallery
File:Ssa-bldg-north.jpg, North Side oblique view
File:Voice of America (18183).jpg, North Entrance
File:Ssa-bldg-east entrance.jpg, East Entrance
File:Fr-bldg-south entrance.jpg, South Entrance
File:Ssa-bldg-west entrance.jpg, West Entrance
File:Ssa-bldg-cornerstone.jpg, Cornerstone
See also
*
Railroad Retirement Board Building
The Mary E. Switzer Memorial Building is a federally owned office building located at 330 C Street SW in Washington, D.C. in the United States. The Egyptian Revival structure was originally named the Railroad Retirement Board Building. It was des ...
on the same block
*
References
External links
{{Commons category
Egyptian Revival architecture in the United States
Federal buildings in the United States
Government buildings completed in 1939
Government buildings on the National Register of Historic Places in Washington, D.C.
Independence Avenue (Washington, D.C.)
Southwest Federal Center